Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#98
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SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#98
10/24/97
SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
silver
city, tucson, phoenix, san
diego
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1.
SUIT CHALLENGES MANAGEMENT OF CALIFORNIA DAM-
TRAIL OF
POLITICAL INTERFERENCE LEADS TO WHITE HOUSE
2. TIMBER SALE E.I.S.
APPEALED
3. FIVE SPECIES DECLARED EXTINCT
FISH
AND WILDLIFE SERVICE FAILED TO LIST THEM UNDER
E.S.A.
_____________________________________
SUIT
CHALLENGES MANAGEMENT OF CALIFORNIA DAM
TRAIL OF POLITICAL INTERFERENCE LEADS
TO WHITE HOUSE
The Southwest Center filed suit in a Sacramento Federal Court
on
October 20, 1997 against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and
the
Army Corps of Engineers for jeopardizing the endangered
Southwestern willow
flycatcher by refusing to reform
management of Isabella Dam on the South and
North forks of the
Kern River. The agencies have violated the Endangered
Species
Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the National
Environmental
Policy Act, and the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
Lake
Isabella is a flood control dam designed to be kept at low
levels to capture
spring floods which might otherwise threaten
Bakersfield, CA. The Army corps,
however, illegally overfills the
dam to benefit agribusiness interests,
putting Bakersfield and
endangered species at risk. When Fish and Wildlife
Service
biologists demanded that Army Corps lower the level of the
Lake
and develop a conservation plan for the Southwestern
willow
flycatchers, Congressman Cal Dooley (D, CA) threatened CEQ
and the
Department of Interior with a national endangered species
crisis Dooley
received $216,000 in campaign contributions from
agribusiness in 1995 and
1996 and also received contributions
from the law office representing the
water users at Isabella.
Under Dooley's influence, FWS Regional Director
Michael Spear
suggested to horrified FWS biologists that the agency "haze"
the
flycatcher population to prevent it from nesting. If the birds
didn't
nest, he reasoned, there would be no take. When Fish and
Wildlife
Service biologists refused this and other schemes, the
consultation
process was taken away from them and moved to Washington,
DC.
When the White House told the Department of Interior to
avoid an ESA
confrontation, Katie McGinty, head of CEQ and
Assistant Secretary of
Interior, John Garamandi. met with Dooley.
In blatant violation of the ESA,
Dooley was allowed to review
FWS mitigation proposals. He ultimately refused
to accept any
changes in dam management, forcing McGinty and Garamandi
to
order the FWS to allow the complete destruction of the
flycatcher
population living at Lake Isabella.
The Southwest Center is
represented in this case (CIV S-97-1969
GEB JFM) Neil Levine of EarthLaw
(Denver) and Larry Sanders
of Berliner Law Offices (Nevada
City).
______________________________________________
TIMBER SALE E.I.S.
APPEALED
The Southwest Center has appealed the Environmental
Impact
Statement for the Pocket-Baker Timber Sale on the Coconino
National
Forest. The E.I.S. proposes to log 10 million board feet
on 6,000 acres and
renew permits on two grazing allotments
covering part of the Fossil Creek
Wilderness Area.
The timber sale violates the Mexican spotted owl
Recovery Plan
by cutting 60 trees over 24" dbh. A total of 65,000 trees would
be
cut, including 5,000 trees over 16" dbh, yet the Forest Service
will
lose over $250,000 by offering the
sale.
_________________________________________
FIVE SPECIES DECLARED
EXTINCT
FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE FAILED TO LIST THEM UNDER E.S.A.
On
September 19, 1997, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
published a notice in
the Federal Register (FR 62:49191-49193)
declaring that five species have
been deleted as "Candidates" for
listing as threatened or endangered species,
because they have
gone extinct. Candidate species are given no protection
under the
ESA. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's systematic failure
to
promptly list candidate species a one the greatest abuses of
the
ESA.
The High Rock Spring tui chub formerly inhabited
three
connected springs on the CA/NV border. Prior to 1980,
groundwater
pumping extirpated the chub from the two NV
springs. In 1982, ther California
Department of Fish and Game
permitted a business to rear an exotic predatory
fish in the same
spring system. It escaped from the rearing facility and
extirpated
the chub. It was declared extinct in 1993.
The Marianas
euploea butterfly was endemic to the Mariana Islands.
It was common in the
1930s but has been steadily
declining due to habitat loss. A 1995 survey
found no trace of it.
The species was declared extinct in 1997.
Three
Hawaiian pomace flies with very limited ranges on the
islands of Hawaii and
Molokai have been declared
extinct.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Kieran
Suckling
ksuckling@sw-center.org
Executive
Director
520.623.5252 phone
Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity 520.623.9797 fax
http://www.sw-center.org
pob 710, tucson, az 85702-710